Prior art aircraft radars are capable of detecting weather. The term “weather” generally refers to any types of detectable weather phenomena, such as, but not limited to, storm cells, turbulence regions, clouds, precipitation, hail, snow, icing conditions, wind shear, and the like that an aircraft may encounter. However, the range of the aircraft radar is limited. For example, the radar range for phenomena such as wind shear may be limited to approximately 40 nautical miles. Further, radar is limited to its line of sight. Thus, a radar cannot detect weather beyond blocking objects, such as a mountain. Even if the radar range was unlimited, the radar could not detect beyond the visible horizon.
FIG. 1 is a simplified hypothetical plan view display 102 illustrating a radar system display 104 presenting a view of the planned flight path 106 through the region of space 108. The plan view display 102 indicates presence of a storm cell along the planned flight path 106, as indicated by a presented storm cell icon 110. The relative location of the aircraft is represented by an icon 112, which has the appearance of a generic aircraft. The plan view display 102 also indicates a presented range of the display, bounded by a closer range 114 and a maximum effective range 116. The region 118 corresponds to the effective range and area of coverage of the aircraft's radar system.
The plan view display 102 also presents supplemental information that may be available beyond the aircraft radar maximum effective range 116, as generally denoted by the region 120 on the plan view display 102. For example, an aircraft icon 122 corresponding to a remote aircraft is presented on the plan view display 102. To further illustrate, a turbulence region 124 is also illustrated. Although the remote aircraft corresponding to the aircraft icon 122, and the turbulence region corresponding to the turbulence region icon 124, are out of range from the aircraft radar system, supplemental information for the remote aircraft and the turbulence is available from other sources. For example, a ground station acquires data from other sources, processes the data, and then communicates the supplemental information to the aircraft.
The supplemental information that is provided by the remote ground station that is presented on the radar system display 104 may not necessarily be timely. Some amount of time is required to receive and process the information from ground based radar systems and or pilot reports. However, such supplemental information may be useful to the crew of the aircraft, particularly if they are able take actions to avoid potentially hazardous weather conditions.
The range that the ground station directly covers with its supplemental information may be limited. Additional supplemental information may be provided from other ground stations via communication links, but there may be a further delay in the communication of the supplemental information provided by these more remote ground stations to the aircraft.
Further, in some situations, supplemental information from ground based stations may not be available. For example, information pertaining to areas over large bodies of water, such as an ocean or very large lake, may not be available. Some countries may have large expanses of undeveloped land that is not covered by a ground station.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide supplemental information to aircraft in situations where no conventional supplemental information is available. Further, where the supplemental information may be available, it is desirable for the aircraft to have more timely supplemental information available.